


perish the rest, this thought is yours

by moonguilt



Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Blood and Violence, Don't Try This At Home, Flustered Lance (Voltron), Getting Together, Kissing, M/M, POV Lance (Voltron), Reckless Keith (Voltron), Worried Lance (Voltron), also i dont remember how the Atlas actually works, but i sure as hell am not gonna sit through s7 or s8 again, but theres a big melty pile of flesh at one point so uhhh i figured i would play it safe, especially the wormhole tech, its not actually all that violent tbh, keith is a little shit who enjoys teasing lance, kissing when u probably should be focused on fighting, mid-battle confession, season 8 was Not My Canon so we're pretending it didnt happen, so we're just gonna go with what we got baby !, takes place sometime after season 7
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-01-21
Updated: 2020-01-21
Packaged: 2021-02-27 07:28:47
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,792
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22353364
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/moonguilt/pseuds/moonguilt
Summary: “Lance? Lance can you hear—” Keith's voice crackled unintelligibly. “—big hit. Are you—” More crackling, and—silence.Lance frantically pressed his comm button. “Keith? Keith, hey, uh, small problem maybe—”The control panel flickered a few times, then sputtered out, and suddenly Red was falling—eerily slow at first, then faster than a bullet. Lance bit back a scream, smashing buttons and yanking at the controls desperately, but Red just kept falling, falling, falling, and all Lance could do was watch as she turned belly-up in the air, giving him a perfect, horrible view of Black taking several heavy shots directly to the cockpit.This time he did scream. But it did no good, and Lance was forced to watch as Black—as Keith—careened toward the moon's surface, a faint trail of purple dusting his wake like the tail of a comet.————–Lance and Keith are sent on a mission to answer a distress signal from the desert moon of Xat-lor VII.  They get more than they bargained for, both in enemy numbers and in feelings.  They have to fight to survive long enough for the rest of their team to arrive, and in the meantime, Things Happen.
Relationships: Keith/Lance (Voltron)
Comments: 21
Kudos: 221





	perish the rest, this thought is yours

It was _mayhem_ on the surface of Xat-lor VII.

Lance kept telling himself that the rest of the team would arrive soon while he steered Red through veritable _swarms_ of galra fighter jets, shooting them down as we went. There were so many of them, too many, just pouring ceaselessly out of the hangar bays of that terrible purple fortress the galra had quite literally dropped onto the desert plains of this little blue moon.

A particularly devious warlord, one of the many hoping to capitalize on the vacancy left by Lotor, had sent one of their best scientists to Xat-lor VII to experiment on the local wildlife in an attempt to imitate the old robeast projects of Zarkon's rule. The galra easily crushed any resistance from the moon's citizens—the Vonn—but eventually grew sloppy, giving the Vonn the opportunity to get a distress signal out to Voltron.

The Vonn's call had reached the Atlas' newly upgraded comm systems at the same time that a similar call from a different quadrant came in, so the team had elected to divide and conquer—Hunk, Allura, and Pidge to the jungle planet of A'ila; Lance and Keith to the desert moon of Xat-lor VII. The Atlas was busy resupplying at a galactic port station, but everyone figured one little moon couldn't be too much trouble for a couple of seasoned Voltron paladins.

Except in their haste, the Vonn did not specify _quite_ the nature of the danger here—or really, even hint at it—until the duo landed in the Vonn resistance base. They sent a call to the team to ask for backup, but the others were dealing with their own mess and the Atlas was still recharging, so it could potentially be vargas before anyone arrived—and Lance and Keith's own arrival had not gone unnoticed. They barely had time to remove their helmets and take a breath of fresh Xat-lorian air (it tasted faintly of … rosemary?) before the galra base was deploying troops and ships faster than Lance could keep track.

At this point, he was starting to have serious doubts as to whether or not it was actually possible for them to pull this mission off. Every time he shot down one fighter, two more took its place. He could only push Red so hard to make it to the enemy's base, and even if they got there, then what? He could see the forcefield and the massive laser turrets all the way from here. And he did _not_ want to get up close and personal with them without a solid plan and some serious reinforcements.

Below him, the moon's turquoise desert was ablaze with battle. The Vonn people—with their cerulean skin and dark hair helping them blend into their surroundings—charged across the shining surface, blaster bolts flying every which way, to attack their enemies head-on. Galra droids swarmed to meet them, the setting of the moon's two suns causing their shadows to stretch long and menacing over the cooling sand. Alongside them, terrible abominations—the Vonn called them “Ygorok,” or “Able End” in their language—snarled and loped over the dunes, their faces now twisted, cybernetic mutations of the wolf-like creatures the Vonn said they once were.

Lance had initially thought the name was a bit apocalyptic and overly dramatic. After seeing a Ygorok tear a Vonn soldier's ribcage out of their chest just minutes ago, he decided the name was far too tame.

Swift movement caught the corner of Lance's eye, and he watched with wide eyes as Black came crashing into the units in front of Red's cockpit. Fighter jets burst into vibrant explosions as Keith wove in and out of their ranks, alternating between slices and laser blasts, until he was right in the thick of the most condensed patch of galra ships.

“Keith!” Lance protested, finding his voice as the initial surprise wore off. “Get the hell out of there, man! You can't just—” He groaned emphatically, blasting several more enemy fighters out of the sky. “I thought we were past your 'Leeroy Jenkins' phase!”

“What the fuck is a—” Keith cut himself off with a grunt as Black took a laser bolt to the side. “Listen, we're not looking good here, and if we want any chance at getting to their base, we need to push.”

Lance didn't like that tone. That was Keith's “I know what's best, and what's best is not caring that I actually don't know what's best” tone.

Keith took another hit. A worse one, to Black's torso.

“Keith!” Lance hollered again, his adrenaline pumping and his fingers clenching around Red's controls. “Are you okay? Jesus fucking Christ—” _Sorry, Mamá_. “—hang on. I'm coming in.”

His arms taut with anxiety, he angled Red straight for that treacherous cluster of enemy ships and pushed forward, gritting his teeth with the strain of holding back some of the more choice words he was itching to spit in Keith's direction: idiot, reckless, stupid, death wish, I'm going to wring your neck, et cetera.

Instead, he settled on mumbling, “God, you have zero sense of self preservation.”

“Old habits die hard,” Keith coughed. Well, at least he was still alive.

“Wha—that doesn't mean you have to die with them! Idiot.” Okay, so maybe some of those choice words were slipping out.

Before he had the time to contemplate it, Lance's vision was filled with a fighter ship flying in far too close for comfort—straight at him. He tried his best to angle out of the way, but the jet caught Red right in the throat, bursting into flames against her surface with far more intensity than any of the other ships' explosions—as if, perhaps, the pilot had taken explosives on board with them. Intentionally.

“Lance? Lance can you hear—” Keith's voice crackled unintelligibly. “—big hit. Are you—” More crackling, and—silence.

Lance frantically pressed his comm button. “Keith? Keith, hey, uh, small problem maybe—”

The control panel flickered a few times, then sputtered out, and suddenly Red was falling—eerily slow at first, then faster than a bullet. Lance bit back a scream, smashing buttons and yanking at the controls desperately, but Red just kept falling, falling, falling, and all Lance could do was watch as she turned belly-up in the air, giving him a perfect, horrible view of Black taking several heavy shots directly to the cockpit.

This time he did scream. But it did no good, and Lance was forced to watch as Black—as _Keith_ —careened toward the moon's surface, a faint trail of purple dusting his wake like the tail of a comet.

Lance's panic was short-lived, however, as he was soon interrupted by the jolting, bruising impact of Red slamming into the ground at full speed. His teeth rattled so hard he thought for sure he would chip a tooth, and then it was—quiet. Completely still. Nothing but the cold shadows of Red's lifeless interior.

After giving himself a moment to check for broken bones—none, thankfully, just a few contusions—and to try unsuccessfully to bring Red back online, Lance jumped out of his seat and rushed for the exit, praying that none of the doors were jammed. Only the final one gave him any trouble, which turned out to be the result of sand blocking half of the exit. Once Lance managed to pry the door open enough to squeeze out, he was met with a small flood of the turquoise substance leaking into his lion.

“Ah, shit,” he hissed, squeezing himself through the opening despite the sandy blockade. “Sorry, Red. I'll give you a deep cleanse when we—” He inhaled sharply, the sound of shouting and gunfire assailing his ears. “Keith,” he breathed, and clambered up the nearby dune on his hands and knees.

When he reached the top, it was—chaos. Galra droids and Ygorok were locked in combat with the Vonn, any semblance of formation or strategy long forgotten. Bodies and—and body _parts—_ lay strewn across the shimmering blue landscape, staining it dark with blood and making it hard for Lance to process who had the upper hand, if anyone. He hadn't realized it from so far above, but the dunes were incredibly hilly and uneven—he couldn't see more than maybe fifty meters in the distance.

No sign of Keith within those fifty meters either.

Taking a deep breath to center himself, Lance drew his bayard and started down the incline, firing off shots left and right as he ran for the opposite side of the ditch. The droids collapsed easily with hefty clanks, but the Ygorok proved more resilient—Lance found it took several shots to fell one of them, or a very lucky bolt to one of its myriad vulnerable black eyes.

Lance scaled the next dune and trudged across the next ditch in much the same fashion as the first, shooting as he went, calling Keith's name whenever he had the breath to spare. He hadn't caught which direction Black had fallen in, so he could only hope that he was heading the right way. So far, he was not feeling terribly optimistic.

Upon climbing to the ridge of the third dune, Lance staggered to a stop, shocked by the scene before him. This one was not a _ditch_ —this was a miniature _valley_. This _must_ be the heart of the battle. It was... Lance felt his blood run cold as he viewed the carnage. Hundreds of droids and beasts and Vonn struggled against each other—the Vonn had the advantage of knowing how to walk nimbly through the sand, but the Galra had the advantage of sheer numbers. Lance could see no clear indication of this conflict stopping any time soon—and...

No Keith.

Searching for him in this bloodbath was like trying to play _Where's Waldo?_ with all of the people _moving_. There were so many figures down below, and Lance was so desperate to see a flash of red, and he could feel the bubble of panic and frustration and fear rising up in his throat, threatening to overwhelm him, and—

“... ance!”

Lance nearly fell off the dune. He squinted and peered down toward the bottom of the decline, where the sound had come from. At first he didn't see anything, and then—

“Lance!” There it was—the flash of red. He could have cried with relief. Actually, maybe he was crying a little bit, but he didn't know because he had more important things on his mind.

Like Keith, who was now pushing through the throng, cutting down any enemies who tried to interfere, and waving whenever he had a free moment. That was all it took for Lance to race, stumbling, down into the ravine. Cyan dust erupted in a trailing puff behind him, sparkling against the backdrop of dozens of Galra fighter jets criss-crossing the golden-orange sky. He could not care less about them right now; he had one thing in mind: getting down there, down to Keith, and he was almost there, and Keith was running too, and—

Lance's boot caught in the thick sand, tripping him and sending him tumbling forward at the last moment, directly into Keith, who exhaled a quick “oof” and wrapped his arms around Lance in a steadying motion even as he staggered backwards from the impact.

“Hey, Sharpshooter,” Keith breathed, and it was soft, and it was good, and Lance instantly felt the tension in his shoulders melt away. “They hurt you?” His grip tightened reflexively as he spoke.

“Mmno,” Lance mumbled, squeezing back in response, hooking his chin securely over Keith's shoulder. “I thought I—” He cut off, licked his lips, started again. “I thought they got you.”

Keith knocked his helmet against Lance's, the clunk temporarily blocking out the cacophony of the war zone around them. “You can't get rid of me that easily.” He inhaled deeply, one hand rubbing soothing circles against Lance's back—though the slight shake of his fingers indicated it was just as much an effort to calm himself as it was to calm Lance. “I'm glad you're okay. Glad you're here.”

The honesty in his voice made Lance pause, pulling his head back just enough to meet Keith's gaze, their helmets still touching. He blinked once, then opened his mouth to reply—

And lifted his arm shield to block an incoming laser bolt from a pack of droids and a Ygorok heading their way.

Both paladins sprang into action, emotion giving way to instinct as they brandished their bayards and entered the fray. Lance felt his fingers curl around his gun before he even realized it had materialized; the familiar weight in his hand was almost as comforting as the sight of Keith before him—a luxury he had almost lost just moments ago.

At least, it was comforting until he realized that Keith was now in melee range of the enemy, clashing with them and—well, admittedly cutting through them like weeds, but that wasn't the _point!_ The point was that Keith was now officially in the Danger Zone, and while normally Lance would enjoy seeing Keith in most places (Keith was easy on the eyes; sue him), the Danger Zone was not on that list.

Blue tinted Lance's vision as he aimed through the scope on his gun, expertly felling a pair of droids in three seconds flat. Their core processing units sizzled as they collapsed to the ground, blaster fire leaving molten holes in their heads. Lance felt a rush of relief as it bought Keith that precious extra breathing room, but he knew better than to dwell on it. He adjusted his aim just in time to see the Ygorok pounce at Keith, knocking him back a step and attempting to clamp down on his arm with its terrible snapping maw.

“Watch it!” Lance shouted, unleashing a torrent of rapid fire shots on the beast, which let out a hideous whingeing snarl as its blackened flesh began to smoke from the areas of impact. In a desperate frenzy, it lunged straight for Keith's abdomen, and Lance took the opportunity to lodge a laser bolt right in one of its many soulless eyes. Its jaw unhinged, and the creature let out one last eldritch screech before sinking to the ground and beginning to melt into a disgusting pile of flesh and fur and robotic parts. Whatever biological blasphemy had kept this monster in one piece was clearly unable to continue doing so without the aid of a beating heart. Lance felt his stomach roil.

Keith, however, appeared largely unaffected, judging by the way he simply launched himself back into combat with the next nearest droid. And _that_ sparked a little flicker of annoyance in Lance as he once again took aim.

“Be more careful,” he growled, nailing a droid in the neck with a clean shot. “That _thing_ almost got you.”

Keith grunted as he yanked his sword out of a droid's chest and chopped another one's head off. “I know you've got my back,” he called over his shoulder, turning to face his next opponent and leaving himself exposed to another droid coming up behind him.

Lance let out a wordless noise of frustration and immediately shot down the threat. He opened his mouth to air his grievances, but Keith beat him to it.

“See?” he said, cutting through a metal torso and flashing one of his stupidly attractive smirks. “I trust you, Lance.”

The cadence of his voice and the bluntness of his words left a trail of pink crawling up Lance's neck, all the way to the apples of his cheeks. Was he—he wasn't flirting, right? Keith wouldn't flirt. Right?

Lance tried to hide his blush behind more perfectly aimed shots and a scowl. “Would you quit putting yourself at risk for once, you inconsiderate jerk? I'm gonna have a heart attack!” He was met with another smirk. His blood was running hot now. “And stop doing that! With your mouth! It's distracting!”

And that bastard, while he cut down enemies left and right, had the audacity to smirk _wider_.

Lance's blood was absolutely boiling now.

“ _Keith!_ ” he yelled, blasting another droid in the face. “Stop doing that _fucking thing_ or I swear to God I'm gonna _scream!_ ” He landed another shot, caught up in the moment, not fully realizing that the number of enemies in their immediate vicinity was rapidly dwindling.

Keith buried his blade in a robotic clavicle and met Lance's eyes over the droid's shoulder. It felt like slow motion as he raised one eyebrow in silent challenge, waited, then let the edge of his lip curl upward tauntingly before ripping his sword back out again and whirling to face the next foe.

Never one to go back on his oaths, Lance _did_ scream.

“ _Keith Kogane, stop making me want you to kiss me with your stupid mouth!_ ”

Lance's entire body twitched as his own words sunk in. His aim was thrown off; his shot at the last remaining droid merely grazed the visor instead of striking right through. He felt like someone had dunked him in ice water, then pulled him out and left him to air dry.

Keith, for his part, seemed remarkably unfazed. His focus was still on the heat of battle. “Well maybe if you shut _your_ stupid mouth every once in a while,” he retorted in a teasing tone, driving his blade through the jaw of the final droid, “I'd actually be able to do that.”

Lance's breath caught in his throat. The droid collapsed at Keith's feet in a puff of sand, and suddenly everything was still.

It took no more than two-and-a-half seconds of silence for Keith to catch up to the conversation, and when he did, he spun around with wide eyes. “Uh—”

But Lance was already moving, slowly at first, then building momentum until he was running and tearing his helmet off and tossing it to the sand with utter disregard, until he was watching Keith's expression go from alarm to something like confusion and then back to alarm again, until he was grabbing Keith's helmet and pulling it off and gripping it tightly where he let his hands rest behind Keith's head after throwing his arms around the other man's neck, until he was—

Until he was kissing him.

And, oh.

Oh, he _was_ kissing him.

Lance kissed Keith like lightning, like warm wind meeting cold wind in a storm, like wave into rock into wave in a river's rapids. He kissed Keith like an earthquake, like a whole forest engulfed in flames, like a meteorite striking its destination with a blazing and unstoppable finality. He kissed Keith like _Keith_ —wild, reckless, untamed and untamable. Beautiful and devastating. Alive.

 _Very_ alive, it seemed. Keith wasted no time in pressing back, meeting Lance with equal vigor, as he always had in everything they did, and as he always would. Keith kissed Lance like he fought Lance in the training room, trading kisses like he traded blows—a constant push and pull; a game of prediction and adaptation and surprise; an unspoken challenge to do more, to _give_ more.

Lance _loved_ it.

He let Keith's helmet slip from his grasp and clatter against the debris on the ground, instead opting to thread his fingers reverently through Keith's sweat-knotted hair. Under any other circumstance, he would have been repulsed, but all he could think of in this moment was getting Keith _closer,_ getting his hands on the crown of Keith's head, feeling the intimacy of exploring this part of Keith that he had never been privy to until now.

Keith, too, seemed similarly inclined to _touch_. His hands found purchase on Lance's waist, their grip hesitant—until Lance's lips parted involuntarily to let out a small _noise_. It made Keith _desperate_ to swallow the sound, to elicit another one, and so he wrapped his arms around Lance in earnest and nipped at his lower lip, offering a silent plea with a single swipe of the tongue.

And Lance rewarded his plea with permission: an opening and an offering of his own. He parted his mouth to meet with Keith's, finding a pattern in the chaos, a rhythm to which they both settled, until their movements became languid and lazy and sated. Lance's breath beat in heavy, stuttering gusts against Keith's own in the brief moments when they would part between kisses. Those moments gradually became less brief until the two paladins were simply hovering before one another, their lips barely brushing, their eyes glazed but open, their complexions red with heat.

It was Keith who broke the trance. He placed a single feather-light kiss on Lance's bitten lips, then gently nudged his face past the other's, letting his flushed cheek come to rest against Lance's. And then, with his mouth pressed tantalizingly close to Lance's ear, he said in a breathless, soft whisper:

“There's a pack of Ygorok advancing on our location.”

Lance blinked slowly, his fuzzy brain struggling to process what Keith was saying. He gave a low hum in response, then furrowed his brows and paused.

_Wait._

In an instant, Lance's eyes flew wide open. “ _What?!_ ” He attempted to yank himself backwards, but Keith's grip tightened on his waist, holding Lance flush against him. “Keith!” Lance leaned his torso back as far as he could, smacking his hands against Keith's chest plate. “ _Keith!_ ” No response aside from a breathy chuckle. “ _Keithkeithkeithkeithkeith—_ ”

Keith snickered and tugged Lance back in, pressing a loud, smacking kiss to his cheek before releasing and stepping around him, bayard drawn. By the time Lance had turned around, Keith was already rushing forward to meet the pack of Ygorok, fighting with renewed energy, slamming his shield into one's slavering jowls and driving his sword through the roof of another one's mouth.

Lance gaped after him for a moment, cheek tingling, until a stray laser bolt whizzed past his nose. He yelped, fumbling with his bayard for a moment before getting his limbs to finally cooperate long enough for him to get a few good shots off.

“ _You asshole!_ Stop distracting me!” he shrieked, shooting a hole through a soft spot on a Ygorok's throat. “You're a hazard! You hear me? A _hazard!_ ” He huffed and shot another Ygorok in the leg, preventing it from jumping over the corpse of its fellow.

But Keith just laughed that rough, raspy laugh of his; glanced to the sky, where three familiar flashes of blue, green, and yellow appeared, metallic roars announcing their arrival; and with that stupid, stupid smirk on his face, said, “I'll make it up to you later.”

And he did.

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks for reading! I love reading comments and I respond to every one so feel free to share your thoughts!
> 
> tumblr & twitter: @moonguilt


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